Customers have won their first lawsuit against Volksbank Romania

• Gheorghe Piperea: The important thing is that the bank will need to return the money to its customers

• Volksbank Romania will challenge the ruling of the court of Bucharest

Customers of Volksbank Romania who filed a lawsuit against the bank, due to the abusive commissions and the method used for calculating the interest rate in Romania, yesterday saw a ruling rendered in their favor, according to lawyer Gheorghe Piperea, who was representing them.

He said: "The independence of judges is the best guarantee against the unlimited power of corporations. The aggressive PR of Volksbank did not matter, because the people had justice on their side".

Lawyer Gheorghe Piperea said that the court decided to eliminate the risk commission and other commissions with "strange" names, as well as the elimination of the clause for the adjustment of interest. He went on to say that the Effective Annual Interest rate (DAE) was cut from 12% to 4-5%.

What is important is that Volksbank Romania will have to give customers their money back, according to lawyer Gheorghe Piperea.

When it comes to the damages which the customers of Volksbank Romania will be paid, he said that an exact figure is difficult to mention, but he estimates that each customer will receive approximately 4,000 - 5,000 Euros.

From his point of view, the best thing the bank could do would be to propose, starting tomorrow (ed. note: today), a solution to avoid any future lawsuits. Still, lawyer Gheorghe Piperea expects the bank to continue the fight, resorting to various avenues of attack to have the ruling suspended.

• Volksbank România: "We won't deny the fact that the bank did not act perfectly in the past, in its relationship with its customers"

"We will appeal this ruling because we feel that it violates an important principle of law: that of the contract as a law betweeen the parties", the officials of Volksbank Romania said.

"The moment a person signs a contract, they must be required to uphold the obligations taken on through that agreement".

"At the time when the loan contracts with Volksbank România were signed, there were no regulations which would limit the types of fees and commissions which banks were allowed to charge. Customers also knew that they would owe a risk fee, because it was mentioned in the repayment schedule attached to the contract", the press release of the bank shows.

The representatives of the bank said: "We do not deny the fact that the bank did not act perfectly in the past, in its relationship with the customers. We acknoledge these mistakes and we have learned them".

For a significant number of customers, the bank succeeded in finding solutions "in a far shorter delay and at a lower cost than through the Courts", according to the representatives of the bank.

The aforementioned sources claim that there are definitive and irrevocable rulings of other courts, such as the one of Mehedinţi, in favor of the bank: "The court of Mehedinti concluded that, in the contracts signed with Volksbank, the clauses concerning the risk fee are valid, since they are expressed in a clear and intelligible manner and are part of the < price > of the contract".